


let the snow fall, make my heart warm

by itsgameover



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Mistletoe, New Year's Eve, Orphans, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27632951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsgameover/pseuds/itsgameover
Summary: Jongdae and Minseok deserve warm holiday seasons.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Comments: 17
Kudos: 38
Collections: EXO on Ice Round 1





	let the snow fall, make my heart warm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Exo On Ice Fest, Self-Prompt.  
> Merry christmas! This fic is not nearly as long as I wanted to be but I'm so proud of it <3 It's cozy and soft and it made my heart melt <3  
> Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it :D

༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻⛄༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺

“Do you think Santa is real?”

It’s the dead of the night, past midnight, on December 25th. It’s snowing outside, the temperature is insanely cold, all the roofs of the city are covered in snow. Everything outside looks like a portrait, a pretty painting drawn in dark colors. The street lights seem like little lights on a christmas tree. And frankly the world outside seems better than the presents they had got from the Sisters of Charity, who had taken a liking to gifting knitted presents that they themselves made. Minseok complains because his mittens are a little bit scratchy and too big on the fingers area but not around the palm.

And with such a landscape, Jongdae has the audacity to ask if Santa exists. So of course, Minseok glares at him before he surrenders to the wondrous look in Jongdae’s eyes.

“No.” Minseok asks, barely sparing him a glance.

“That’s sad” Jongdae says, leaning his forehead against the cold crystal and shivering as he moves back, burrowing a little bit more into the shared blanket they brought with them to ‘stargaze’ “I wish someone cared enough to bring me a present.”

Minseok feels a pang of pain and guilt inside his chest, so he clears his throat and thinks of what to say now.

“Ok, I lied” he finally says, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning closer to Jongdae for more warmth “Santa does exist, he just doesn’t give me gifts so I always say he is not real.”

Jongdae stares at him with a bewildered expression. “Why won’t he give you gifts? You are good!”

”I don’t know, last week I punched Kibum”  _ he absolutely deserved it _ , Minseok thinks. 

“Ah, that’s right… but you did it because he was bothering me! You are still good” 

Minseok shrugs, “Meh, I don’t really care about presents. I just want my family.” Admitting it out loud makes him wish he could curve into a ball and spend his days bawling his frustration to the world. More often than not he feels lonely, even in a crowded room. 

“Me too”, Jongdae admits, pressing his knees to his chest “I wish we could be adopted together”

_ I don’t even know if someone would want to adopt me _ . “Yeah, that’d be nice”

“How is it? Having a family I mean” Jongdae averts his eyes, staring at his knees with furrowed brows “I never had one, but you did...”

What can Minseok say? All his memories are old and dusty, like old film on the screen, grainy and cold. He could speak of his dad’s carpentry job, of his mother’s fascination with the color lilac and the lavender perfume that she always put on his clothes. He vaguely remembers summers in the sun, drinking in the balcony and staring at the cars driving on the street below. He can’t recall a single memory from his two years living in Korea, let alone remember his grandparents’ names, but the smell of korean food always makes him smile. 

Minseok feels sad thinking about those things, but Jongdae’s smile is so sincere and kind that he can’t help but sigh and try to make recollections that don’t hurt as much.

“My mom spoke korean every morning,” he answers with a sad smile. “She would wake me up yelling in korean and my dad would complain over breakfast that they should be speaking only english so I would learn it well.” 

“That's sweet.”

“It’s dumb.” Minseok feels bitter but still smiles. “I wish they had spoken more korean”

“Oh, well, I don’t even know korean” his small friend shrugs, tilting his head.

“Yet you are named Jongdae.”

“Because this is an asian orphanage, silly!” Jongdae shoves him slightly, laughing as he does. 

“But they could have called you a chinese name” Minseok says, shrugging.

“Ugh, no,” a disgusted expression takes over Jongdae’s face, making Minseok grin “Jongdae is pretty.”

“It is,” Minseok can admit that without fuss, but still adds “it suits you pretty well” and that makes them both smile. 

“Right?! I am such a Jongdae!” Minseok shuts him down with mittened hands over his lips, turning around to see if anyone has heard them. “Sorry” Jongdae apologizes after Minseok has made sure no one is there apart from them.

They stay in silence after that, two quiet kids by the large window of the dining room, watching the snow fall. It’s eerily quiet, yet pretty and charming. Minseok remembers being six and drinking eggnog by the fire, but all of that seems to have been a lifetime ago, like it happened to someone else. All exists before the fire, before the fear of sleeping alone. 

That fear of sleeping alone had made him tear up one night and made his bunk-bed partner, a perky kid named Jongdae, wake up and cuddle him, talking nonsense until Minseok had fallen asleep. 

After that dramatic midnight incident, the pair had been inseparable. At first, because Minseok was scared Jongdae would tell others about his cowardice, making fun of his weakness, and then because he found genuine joy in a friend like him. It was a solace, it was peaceful. Jongdae never asked about why he was in the orphanage, he only asked if he liked to play any games if he had had any game console in his home, what was his favourite pokemon, what movies did he like. Normal friends, as if they weren’t surrounded by kids abandoned by their parents, either by choice or by fate. 

“Look” Jongdae quietly says, tugging Minseok’s sleeve. Minseok follows his raised finger across the crystal and right into the universe, where a shooting star is crossing the sky “Make a wish, Minnie.” 

Minseok is twelve years old, perhaps a little bit cynical for his age, not believing in anyone or anything, aware that the world is harsh and crude, that no one gets spared of suffering and most people don’t deserve it in the first place. But Jongdae is ten, abandoned as a babe in the doorstep of the orphanage, knowing no one is waiting for him out there, that his chances of being adopted lower with each birthday, and yet he believes. He believes in God, praying every night before bed for a good loving family to choose each and every child in the orphanage, believes in fairies and Santa Claus and, of course, shooting stars. 

So Minseok grabs his hand and closes his eyes, wishing both of them to get a chance of being loved, that Jongdae gets all the love he deserves. When he opens his eyes, Jongdae is smiling, staring at the sky with wide shiny eyes. 

“What did you wish for?” the younger boy asks, smile dropping as Minseok shakes his head adamantly. 

“You can’t tell others your wish if you want it to come true” he assures with a hopefully serious expression.

“Oh, is that so?” Jongdae gapes for a moment, then smiles with all his teeth “If they come true we have to tell each other about it!” 

“Ok.”

“Promise?” Jongdae raises his pinky. Minseok reluctantly links his own pinky to Jongdae’s, smiling with the satisfaction that spreads across the boy’s face.

“Promise” Minseok answers. After all, how big is the chance that they will see their dreams come true?

  
  


༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻⛄༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺

  
  


The streets should be empty, the fast lanes should be empty, but no! Apparently everyone and their mothers have decided to drive home for christmas just a few hours short of midnight. And yes, he is one of those late drivers, but he has a perfectly valid excuse: work. Even on December 24th, he can’t rest. Should he have let the case rest until the 26th? Probably, but his work ethic is too precious to be thrown away due to holiday spirit. 

Minseok parks his car in the driveway of a large suburban house with way too many Christmas lights and three different plastic snowmen placed on the roof, a Santa with a moving arm waving back and forth standing in front of one of the windows.

“Please, please, please, tell me you brought the wine!” Jihyo says, stepping out of the house with a thin beige sweater and a short skirt to accompany the ‘I want to freeze to death’ look. 

“Yes, I did, don’t panic!” Minseok answers, hastening to open the trunk and take out three bottles of rosé and two of cabernet sauvignon. 

“Ah, bless you Minseokkie, you saved christmas!” She celebrates, running to him, hugging him through a shiver that makes him laugh and rushing to the house with three of the bottles between her arms “Come inside! Food is almost ready!” she yells from the red threshold of her large house. Minseok is lucky to have gotten such a fantastic cousin as a part of his adoption package. 

Because yes, Minseok got lucky and seven days after Christmas a lovely family from Rhode Island had showed up to the orphanage with wide smiles, bringing hopeful thoughts to the boys and girls in the old big red bricks building. They were korean, Kims just like Minseok’s deceased parents were, and had only one other son who had recently left for college in the west coast. The couple said they still had a lot of love to give but didn’t want to raise from scratch a little child. Preferably they wanted a boy and if he was of korean descent then even better. Minseok fitted in all those categories neatly. 

A few months later, Minseok hugged Jongdae tightly and told him to not lose hope (Jongdae said the tears in his eyes were of joy, but Minseok wasn’t so sure). And he left his only friend along with the orphanage and moved into a two story house in Providence. 

He would eat kimbap and jajangmyeon, would hear korean in the mornings and attend football practice in the afternoon. He would get punished for staying up until the wee hours playing games and would receive warm hugs each and every night before bed. His new older brother, Jonghoon, visited the house every summer and even if he was skeptical at first he then started to like the idea of a younger brother and soon became clear that he adored Minseok’s puffy cheeks.

Minseok was loved, cared for, educated in good schools and allowed to be his brooding cynical self sometimes, because ultimately he would smile and make dumb dad jokes to the dismay of his poor mother and the complicity of his dad. 

“Put your suitcase in the corridor,” his sweet cousin says, skipping away into what Minseok can presumably say it’s the kitchen “I will accommodate you in one of the guest rooms after dinner!”

“That’s fine by me!” Minseok answers, stepping into the house and closing the door behind him. “Where is little Danny? Where is my new cousin?” Minseok asks, shrugging out his coat and putting on the coat hanger in the foyer. There is music playing,  _ ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ _ preparing the ambiance, and the smell of delicious food floods his nose. He can feel his mouth watering and almost hears the rumble of his stomach. 

“He is in the kitchen with his cousin!” Jihyo answers, coming back and giving him a cup full of fizzy champagne “They are making Waldorf salad, come join the gang. Jonghoon is in the living room with Jonginnie y Hyo!”

“Minseokkie!” Jongin screams as soon as he sees him, jumping to tackle him into a hug but stopping when Minseok points at his drink “Ah, you are too clever for me!” Minseok rolls his eyes and puts down his drink on a small table, now properly tackled by his cousin, followed by Jonghoon and Hyojung, Minseok’s sister in law. 

He takes his time to salute the rest of the people in the room, a man named Junmyeon and a girl named Joohyun, who introduce themselves as Daniel’s, Jihyo’s shining husband, cousins. He sees Seulgi, Daniel’s half sister and overall cool girl who he met in the wedding, and her girlfriend, canadian Wendy who doesn’t like when one makes jokes about the restaurant that shares her name.

“Minnie, come to the kitchen!” Jihyo calls, taking him by the arm and dragging him to the all white sleek kitchen. 

“Cousin Seok!” Daniel says, rushing to hug him and smother him with some much appreciated in-law-family love. 

And then time slows down, stopping to a halt when Minseok lets go of Daniel and gets to see the cousin he is cooking with. Their eyes meet across the polished wood of Jihyo and Daniel’s breakfast table and Minseok stops breathing for a moment. 

Wearing a cute brown apron over a blue button-up shirt, hair styled up and back, thick framed black glasses under up-kipped eyebrows and cute kitten lips making it undoubtedly him, Jongdae, his only friend when he was a lonely orphan with bitter thoughts and hopeless dreams, stares back at him. 

“M-Minseok?” the man stammers, smiling softly. Minseok can only smile in return.

“Jongdae” he says, finally recovering his voice and approaching him with hesitating steps. 

“You know each other?” Daniel asks, shocked. 

Jongdae nods, “We grew up in the same orphanage” he shakes his head with a mischievous smile on his lips “more or less.”

“Oh my God! What a coincidence!” Jihyo says, clasping her hands with childish glee on her face. And then the glee melts because there is beeping coming from a phone and she screams “The chicken!” and suddenly the attention shifts to the almost but not quite burning food in the oven. 

“Is dinner ready?” Jongin asks, popping into the room with narrowed eyes. 

“Yes! Let's eat!” 

༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻⛄༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺

Christmas dinner has always been a joyous occasion for Minseok, at least since he was adopted. The Kim family made a big deal of the holiday, with lots of food and decorations. They invited all of their extended family, crowding the rooms of their house and filling the street with laughter and dance when midnight came. In such conditions, crowded rooms and full stomachs, Jihyo and Minseok came to know each other. 

Jihyo is his cousin by his adoptive mother’s side of the family. She is sweet and charming, funny and so clever. And every christmas season, Jihyo would run up to her ‘new cousin’ and ask him to play games with her, to help her prank Jonghoon, to help her wrap her last minute gift to her mom, to hug her after a boy dumped her twelve hours before christmas eve, to tell her if he thought her boyfriend was good, to help her choose what watch she should gift to Daniel, recently upgraded from boyfriend to fiancé, and now, to bring some extra alcohol to the party. 

“Make it fancy!” she said over the phone and Minseok delivered, expensive wine and all. 

It paid off, since he got the biggest piece of chicken on the first serving and Jongin complained that his sister was being unfair with him. 

But dinner, for as delicious as it was, it wasn’t nearly as entertaining as watching the man sitting on the other side of the table, in between Hyojung and Jongin, chatting with Seulgi about something as he serves the Waldorf salad to those who request it. When Minseok asks for some, they make eye contact and Jongdae blushes. Minseok gets a larger serving and thanks for it with a smile and a little head bow.

And dinner feels like it takes ages, like the food never ends, like time never goes by, 22:45 lasts for at least an hour. Minseok drinks and eats, chats with the people around him. At some point the air feels so warm that people start to take off their sweaters, ugly and pretty alike, and Minseok ends up with his corporate appropriate white button up shirt, tie loosened around his neck. 

“Have you been hitting the gym?” Jonghoon asks him, patting his bicep and Minseok feels a little bit shy considering Jongdae has been staring intently at him for the last five minutes and now the boy is laughing at him. 

The boy, it feels silly to think of Jongdae as a boy. It feels silly to think of this man with high cheekbones and pretty eyes, with an elegantly styled mop of black hair, as the same boy he met in the orphanage, that boy with shiny eyes and tousled hair, that boy who didn’t know a word in korean and now corrects Wendy’s pronunciation of jjajangmyeon. 

“Hey, gym equals health,” Jongdae says, eating another bite of pie “I would know it because I never go there.”

“You should go together,” Seulgi says, hitting the back of Jongdae’s hand “you live nearby!”

Minseok raises an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

“Jongdae moved to New York a few years ago,” Daniel answers, “He is a top tier journalist. He didn’t attend our wedding because he was in Kazata-something covering protests like the justice loving man he is.”

“Kazakhstan,” Jongdae answers, swirling his glass of white wine, “And I’m not top tier, I just like to travel.”

“Yeah, like that year you went to North Korea and they almost killed you after you exposed the living condition of army women,” Wendy says, laughing when Jongdae stutters to answer. 

“Wasn’t Dae who uncovered the story of the abuses in a small monastery in the south of France?” Daniel asks, Jihyo confirms it with a nod. 

Jongin nods as well, “Yeah, Dae, you are a legend!”

“I am not such a thing!” Jongdae complains, shaking the hand that rests on his shoulder “Don’t believe them hyung!”

“Hyung!” Jongin says, gasping. “Are you that close?”

Minseok joins the laughter this elicits, but his eyes never leave Jongdae’s reddened high cheeks. Was Jongdae handsome when he was a child? Minseok doesn’t remember that, doesn’t think the child he was, so bitter and annoying, would have noticed that. He just remembers him being adorable and cute, foolishly hopeful, a believer to the very end. It makes him feel warm to think of that child growing up to become a justice-fighter, shining a spotlight in important matters with whatever means he has. 

“Well, not to boast about my own cousin,” Jihyo starts, Minseok knowing fully well she is about to boast about him, “but Minseok here was the one who won the demand against Monsanto for contaminating important bodies of water.”

“Yes, Minnie also sued a gross family for forcing their daughter, a nineteen years old rape victim, to carry on her unwanted pregnancy” Jonghoon says, very seriously, “and then sued them again for throwing her out to the streets when she got an abortion.” 

Jongin puts his chin in between his index and thumb, brushing it thoughtfully, “wasn’t Minnie who made the court declare the unconstitutionality of a health related law?”

“Oh yeah, that too!” Jihyo exclaims, smiling so bright as she pinches her cousin’s cheek. “Minnie is our own little legend”

“And why are we putting the legends on opposite sides of the table?” Hyojung says, “They should be together, so they enhance each other legendary status”

Minseok laughs, shaking his head no because Jongdae is doing it as well and both of them probably look like overly grown tomatoes. 

Jihyo calls the attention when she stands up to point at the big clock on the wall. It’s 23:57, time to fill everyone’s glasses and watch intently as the black hands of the clock move, minute by minute. 

“Merry Christmas!” Jongin yells as the clock hits midnight, rising to his feet and calling for cheers. 

And as the people around him move, the clicking of the glasses rivaling the sound of the fireworks that have started to explode outside, Minseok pushes past other people’s limbs and extends his arm as far as it goes to brush Jongdae’s champagne glass. 

“Merry christmas, hyung,” Jongdae says, almost a whisper in between the cheers and laughter that bubbles around them. 

“Merry christmas, Jongdae,” Minseok answers and when their glasses click it feels a little bit like tapping with their fingers the crystal of the orphanage’s large windows. 

“Let’s go to the deck to watch the fireworks!” Daniel suggests and soon everyone grabs their coats and their drinks. 

Minseok doesn’t miss the fact that Jongdae staggers, so he does that as well, putting on his sweater like an old man with arthritis. 

"It’s very cold, isn’t it?” Jongdae asks when they have finally made their way to the backyard. 

Minseok nods, “Yeah, winter in Rhode Island is quite intense.”

“I was adopted in Providence too,” Jongdae mutters, burrowing deeper inside his larger brown coat, “How did we never meet before?”

Minseok shrugs, “I’m not sure, it’s a big city I suppose.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

Silence falls upon them as dozens of colours take over the night, the noise of the explosions in the sky and the chattering of their families making up for their quietness. But even in such a nosy environment, Minseok can feel the sound of his heart beating, thrumming inside his chest, shaking him to the core. 

“Did your wish come true, Minnie?” Jongdae asks. 

Minseok inhales deeply, the cold winter air hitting his face at full speed. It’s cold and yet he feels warm, palms clammy around his cup of red wine. Did his wish come true? What did he even wish besides the basics, a warm home and a loving family for both of them? He ponders them if he feels loved and when Jihyo turns around and smiles so brightly at him, when he sees Jongin making a snowman with the half-inch of snow that has pilled up in the backyard, when he sees Jonghoon and Hyojung hugging each other and his brother winks at him over his wife’s shoulder, Minseok can’t help but say that he is loved. The only thing left is to know if Jongdae is. 

“Are you loved?” Minseok asks, turning to him and leaning on the door’s frame. 

“If you are asking if I have a couple-”

“No, silly” he giggles, drinking the last sip of his wine “I’m asking if you feel loved, if your family loves you, if your friends love you.”

“Oh,” Jongdae leans back on the wall by the door, staring into the distance and maybe he is looking at the same things Minseok was a moment ago, at his family members so happily enjoying the firework show. “Then… well, I am loved.”

“Then my wish came true,” Minseok says, raising his glass as if he was going to toast “I am loved and you are loved. That’s all I wanted.”

Jongdae’s smile is brighter than all the fireworks in the sky, eyes disappearing behind pretty crescents, and Minseok feels warmer than if he was leaning on a fireplace. 

“I don’t, by the way,” the younger man says, drinking his champagne “have a couple I mean. I’m just a lonely bisexual.”

“Bi?” Minseok raises an eyebrow, surprised. “Then welcome to the lgbt club, I’m gay.”

Jongdae’s smile is mischievous as he says “hi gay, I’m Dae.”

Minseok groans, as if he didn’t do those awful jokes quite often, “It was better when I didn’t know you were alive”

“I missed you too, hyung,” Jongdae says and his fingers intertwine with Minseok’s, both of their hands slightly clammy. Minseok won’t admit it outloud, but there was something so comforting about feeling the weight of Jongdae’s hand. He may have even teared up a bit, but he will pretend he didn’t. 

༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻⛄༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺

Jihyo and Daniel cancelled their trip to Calgary because Daniel’s parents decided to go on a cruise and left the couple with nothing to do for New Years. And that nothing to do lasted exactly forty five minutes, when they decided they wanted to host a party for their cousins like they did on Christmas. 

And Christmas was such a success that everyone who got added to the ‘Park-Kim-Son-Kang Family’ group chat agreed immediately to another gathering. Minseok didn’t read the groupchat, too busy reading a new case file, but answered the phone as quickly as he could when he read Jongdae’s id. 

“Hyung, are you going to Daniel and Jihyo’s party?” Jongdae’s excited voice chimed through the speaker.

Minseok smiled, “am I even invited to that party?”

“Of course you are, hyung,” the other says through a giggle. “I’ll bring Waldorf salad, you bring the wine.”

“Deal, see you there.”

In the crowded living of Jihyo and Daniel’s home, the environment feels significantly different than on Christmas Eve. The mistletoes hanging from every door frame make siblings and cousins run past each other at the speed of light, but keep couples lingering close to the doors. The music is different too, yes there was a remix of Rockin' around the Christmas tree but immediately after Jongin put Can’t Feel My Face by The Weeknd and Jihyo was piss drunk half an hour before midnight. 

Jongin invited a ‘friend’, a lovely girl named Soojung who works in the same office as he does. Wendy asks her if Jongin has asked how she likes her eggs and Jongin blushes forty shades of red. (She said he asked and the answer was ‘scrambled and in bed’.)

Minseok sits on the couch like the hag he is, one hand wrapped around a glass of whiskey on the rocks, expertly prepared by Seulgi, and his other arm thrown over the back of the couch, just a finger's breadth short of touching Jongdae’s shoulders. 

He won’t lie and pretend they didn’t stick to each other the entire night. 

ver since Christmas, Minseok and Jongdae had spoken to each other a lot. It was just one week, but it went by so quickly and yet so slowly. They exchanged phone numbers and spent hours upon hours texting to each other, found out they live exactly twelve streets away from each other and met for dinner one night in a restaurant located in the middle. 

And it was so nice to see him, so good to hear him talk about his family. Jongdae got adopted by a gay couple, Taeyeon, born in Korean, and Tiffany, born in San Francisco, and spent the better part of his teenage years travelling with his mothers from the USA to Korea. In his own words, he went from knowing absolutely nothing about korean to being pretty much fluent. 

Tiffany is a journalist while Taeyeon is a fashion photographer and hearing them talk about their jobs made him fall in love with both journalism and photography. So Jongdae works in the New York Times, sometimes covering stories in New York, sometimes traveling to Gyeonggi Province in Korea and other times finding himself in the Atacama desert. 

And Minseok found himself enthralled, totally lost in the stories upon stories Jongdae had to tell, desperate for more and more. Jongdae told him they should meet more after New Year’s Eve, but then Jihyo and Daniel opened their house to another holiday party and decided that it was good to meet for lunch on New Years and travel together to their barely wedded cousins' home. 

So it doesn’t feel as strange as it felt on Christmas Eve to see him across the table, now seated directly opposite to maximize the interactions and the blush on each other’s faces. Still, Minseok feels a rush of adrenaline when Jongdae stands up and turns to face him with a smirk. 

“Want to dance, hyung?”

And how can he say no?

They make it to the middle of the improvised dance floor, just the living room with the couches pushed against the wall, the coffee table moved to the foyer. And something catchy that Minseok doesn’t recognize plays on the speakers, coming from Jongin’s Spotify account because he demanded to be in charge of the music. It’s almost midnight by the time Minseok notices the song has switched to a slow tempo and his hands have managed to gain a life of their own, palms resting comfortably over the hem of Jongdae’s pressed on black slacks. 

“I like this song,” Jongdae says, humming along to the melody, and his hands come to rest on Minseok’s shoulders. They are so close, so impossibly close, and Minseok thinks that this can’t possibly be the boy he spent so many days with, so many afternoons playing card games in the playroom of the orphanage. 

It’s midnight then, Jihyo yells it as she jumps to the arms of her husband for a sloppy drunk kiss. Jongin grabs Soojung’s hands, and she is the one that drags him down for a quick kiss. Hyojung and Jonghoon kiss each other like they always do, with eyes half closed and embracing each other tightly. Seulgi and Wendy kiss each other as they dance, swinging on the dance floor. 

Minseok and Jongdae are still where they left the song, frozen in time. 

“Happy New Year, hyung,” Jongdae says and Minseok smiles, knowing fully well he was never the most forward out of the two. 

When they kiss, it’s mellow and sweet, a brush of color on an empty canvas, a midnight sky in full bloom. Jongdae pulls back first, only to breathe in and dive forward once more, opening his mouth to Minseok’s eager tongue and giggling when someone -Jongin, probably- tells them to get a room. 

“Well, they are only ones who will be staying with us tonight,” Daniel says, a giggling Jihyo in his arms, “so they have a room to share.”

Minseok smiles, hiding his heated up face in the crook of Jongdae’s neck. 

“Ah, hyung, don’t be shy,” Jongdae says, swinging them together to the tune of Andy Williams’ ‘It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year’, “it’s totally normal to have big boy needs.”

Minseok groans as he straightens up, pushing Jongdae away and twirling like the good dancer that he thinks he is, “Is it too late to block your number?”

“No,” Jongdae shrugs, “but it’d be way too sad to be ghosted after New Year’s.”

“Fine, I’ll ghost you after Valentine’s Day.”

“You want me to be your Valentine, hyung?” Jongdae gasps, “I’m honored and I accept.” Minseok walks away to the kitchen for more alcohol and Jongdae follows him with a giggle, grabbing his hand like they were always supposed to be tangled together.

༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻⛄༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺

January 1st comes with a densely packed snowfall, the backyard covered in a thick white shroud. It’s a new year and for the first time since he was thirteen, learning from his bright eyed cousin Jihyo to braid hair and how to steal chocolate cake from the kitchen’s fridge in the middle of the night, that there is a chance this may have a possibility of being the year of a new self. Or at least a self that has a little bit more busy space inside his heart.

Minseok leaves the curtain half open, sipping his cocoa with a contented smile as the cars move in the street in front of his cousin’s elegant suburban home. A mail van slows down in front of the house and a woman with a big fluffy hat walks up to the bird house shaped mailbox and deposits a few letters before walking back to the van and driving away.

“Don’t tell me you are still a morning person?” a hoarse voice asks. 

Minseok nods, stifling a laugh, and Jongdae groans. There is a creak, possibly the bed’s frame, rustling of clothes and then a sigh as a pair of hands come to rest over Minseok’s hips, pressing him back against a warm lithe torso clad in a way too ticklish sweater. 

“You didn’t ask,” Jongdae says, eating one of Jihyo’s famous hangover-curing pancakes, “but I like my eggs sunny side up.”

“Good, I like them that way too,” Minseok answers, leaning forward to catch Jongin and Soojung stepping out of her black sedan and walking with arms full of food to the front door. 

“Don’t open!” Jihyo yells from her room, probably eating her pancakes with a pack of ice against her head. Daniel’s laughter is followed by Jongin’s indignant protest that his sister is way too rude. 

“I know we technically don’t know each other that well and that last night we basically just cuddled for seven hours, but…” Jongdae turns Minseok around with a firm tug, after making sure Minseok let the cocoa mug in a stable surface, “Would you like to go on a date with me, hyung? Maybe… next week?”

Minseok smiles, “does friday sound good to you?”

“Friday, January 8th, 2021,” Jongdae closes his eyes, pretending he is writing it down with his index finger moving in the air “8pm?” 

“Good, you pick me up or I pick you up?”

Jongdae hums,“I’ll pick you up, you drove me here yesterday, it’s only fair.”

“Deal,” and then he steals a kiss from those pretty upturned lips. Even when Jongdae is caught off guard he manages to respond so quickly and his hands on Minseok’s neck make him sigh, allowing for their tongues to meet and soon he has to push him away or they won’t be cuddling today. 

“We know each other, Jongdae,” he tells him when they part, staring into Jongdae’s eyes like they hold all the secrets of the universe. “We just have to catch up about... 20 years?”

“Can you do that after lunch though?” Daniel asks, popping his head into the room, “Jiji is struggling as it is, I don’t want her to suffer from ‘cousin being sexed next door’ syndrome’”.

Jongdae’s laugh is the sweetest sound Minseok has ever heard. And as they head downstairs, he wonders if next Christmas he could wake up in his bed, whining about how the only gift he needs in life are those beautiful lips against his neck, forever. 

༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻⛄༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺❄️༻❄️༺


End file.
